Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Grow Wild and Be Free
by Chyme for the Rhyme
Summary: After Alluka heals him, for some reason, Gon's hair remains long. He decides to keep it that way. Meanwhile, Killua learns the merits of using conditioner. For they have both learnt this; that you cannot make someone come to you. You can only wait. {Gon/Killua, basically}


When Gon wakes up, he's confronted by the ceiling and the stiff tang of disinfectant. The bed sheets feel as though they're wrapped around his waist, locking his arms down with a stiff, scratchy feel, one Gon recognises on an instinctive level alongside the memories of rubbing at his hair in the bath.

Gon tugs his arm out, freeing it from its flimsy prison of hospital white and watches blankly as a curl of heavy black flops over the curve of his wrist. It's like a bracelet, one that shines like oil. For a second he doesn't remember. And then he does.

* * *

Killua isn't at Gon's side as he wakes. He should feel guilty for that, but he doesn't. He's preoccupied with the peace on Alluka's face as she sleeps, at the messy way her hair falls against her face and becomes smudged with the sweat of exhilaration. He understands. It was the same way for him too, when he first ran away from home.

His palm rests lightly on her scalp, knowing how easy it would be to squeeze and break through to her skull, one that hasn't been conditioned and hardened against multiple falls and scraps during hours of training. She's not the youngest, but she'll always be the weakest.

Dimly, he registers the dim shine of her hair, the way it feels lank and wet, starved of sunlight and fresh air. He wonders if she's learnt to wash it herself or whether his parents had instructed the butlers to do it for her, trying to keep her as weak and as dependant on the hands of as many other people as possible. He knows why. Despite her isolation, it makes the idea of freedom impossible for her when the butlers come and go and do the small things for her, small things that should show her that she is still her own person.

Either way, she'll have to make do with his hands now, hands that only know how to handle tuffy sprouts of white and short-chopped hair. He'll have to buy her brushes, ones with soft bristles and silky smooth handles designed to rest against un-calloused hands. And combs, combs with thin teeth that will cause him to inwardly wince whenever he drags them through her hair. He's held precious things in his hands before of course, precious things belonging to the people he loves, but Alluka had always been the most breakable one out of them all, and the only one unable to fight back.

But he'll do it. He'll learn how, which shampoo and conditioner to use, which scents she'll like the most, maybe he can write to Mito-san and find out-

He sniffs. The thought lies cut off, incomplete, the way same way he's been feeling for a long time now, back even before Gon was lying on that wretched bed.

* * *

Gon sits in the bed for a long time. If he was surprised to wake up alone, he does not show it. He lifts a few strands of hair and tugs gently on them, feeling the firm coil of his muscles and how different they feel from before. Like something had run through them and flushed out venom he couldn't describe. He doesn't remember the black stain of Alluka's power, or even know her name, not yet, but he feels it, feels traces of it ring hollowly inside him, scooping out edges of that blanket of rage and grief he'd thrown over himself, tugging at his throat to make him feel alone.

Perhaps that's what he deserves. He stares out, at the blank tiles and at the shiny, metallic rim of the medical equipment to his side. If he peers closely enough he can see the contours of his face, the way he blurs and scatters within the curves of jars and syringes, as his reflections, all the limited forms of them, bulge and narrow, like mirrors in a funhouse. He's both a lank child, thin, pale, and a fighter, an urchin from the forest of his home, hair long and untangled next to the firmness of his eyes. He looks so different without the usual hair spikes, ones that had helped to thrust the triangular lines of his chin into focus, that he sees this, both the softness and the wildness of himself in his new appearance, and makes a decision.

He decides, much as he always does, that he can't go back. No, not one step. So he ignores the scissors and knives and scalpels on the trolley and rolls his legs out over the side. The sheets tear and he doesn't even notice.

* * *

Gon and Killua part. It feels inevitable really, with the shadow of unspoken words between them and the clear, distinct presence of Alluka at their side. Killua doesn't even blink when he sees the long hair run down over Gon's sides, as they exchange words, all so Gon could utter his 'sorries' out into the air and feel painfully weak and insufficient all the while. It is the first time he doesn't know how to reassure Killua, how to make the right words bubble up from his throat, words that will make Killua scoff or flush or even blink. It is like he has lost the way how. Given time, maybe it will grow back inside him, that knowledge of how to bring out Killua's smile, the real one without an edge of pain attached.

But it doesn't. He is given time and it passes, with nothing but unwritten letters and unmade phone calls between them, far more than any distance could cover and explain away. And in that time, Killua learns to thread his fingers through Alluka's hair, how to pull hard enough so that she doesn't feel as though he's treating her like a doll, the way the butlers sometimes did. He is careful and through, trapping her hair in fists and then elastic bands, all to make messy braids and ponytails, ones she can giggle at.

It is all training, he tells himself. He has to learn how to summon the courage he has seen Gon display so openly, the kind you don't need when battling monsters, but the kind you do need when you have to ask strangers for help. So he fights against it, this fear that makes him swallow and look away from the tall girl whose heels rap out against the white shimmer of a store floor. She waits as his fists tighten, as his eyes find the hazy outline of himself in those fake-marble tiles.

'Hey, I was wondering-' he cuts himself off, grimacing, and then, telling himself that she can't be worse than Bisky, raises his eyes to meet hers. 'What conditioner do you use?' he grits out. 'I'm not a creep, I swear, it's just...I have a younger sister. And I don't know what kind of stuff would be good for her. Also...' He hesitates again. 'Do you...know any cool ways to tie long hair back? I've seen video tutorials but when I try them, my fingers get lost in my sister's hair and she complains that I'm messing it all up.'

It's true. And he doesn't understand it, how his fingers can twist metal, bend bones, and yet get lost, become clumsy and weak, in the tangle of another person's hair. No matter how they slope and thrust above her scalp, they leave behind a hurricane of split ends and fizz, one big enough to round Alluka's cheeks into a pout.

The girl in front of him melts slightly.

'Aww, you want to know for your sister? That's so sweet!' She beckons to him with a long finger, one that finishes with a sharp dap of pink nail vanish. 'Alright then, but this isn't the right place. '

Two hours later, Killua is cursing himself, trudging back to the hotel room with his hair caught and twisted into multiple scrunchies, his hand wrapped firmly around a bottle of tea-tree flavoured conditioner. Alluka, of course, starts laughing as soon as she sees him. But she doesn't complain this time, not when his fingers eventually, _finally_ manage to pull her hair back into two even ropes that he can thread through the scrunchies he's pulled out of his own.

'There! ' He exclaims proudly. 'Now, don't you want to thank your big brother?'

She twists her head round, her face opening up into something much bigger without the loose hair sliding round to cut against her smile.

'Yes, ' she says simply. 'Thank you, Killua. '

And the blush that he'd fought so courteously against hours before, resurfaces with ease. But there's no struggle on his part, this time, to push it down again.

And that's how the months roll by. Killua walks out, through boulevards and shopping malls, this time with Alluka attentively keeping pace with him. He gains tips from the girls she stares at with such a look of open longing on her face that afterwards, Killua feels compelled to buy her chocolate and sweets and whatever else she may ask for. But the end result is that he can loop her hair into more complex patterns faster, that he can learn to experiment with hair ties in colours other than pink or green and not be accused by her of purposefully making her 'colours clash'.

And then he starts to use conditioner more than shampoo, smearing coconut and aloe vera into her scalp, trying baking soda and egg yolks, watching, fascinated, as their yellow smears into her scalp and falls alongside her neck so that she wrinkles her nose and protests that she'd much rather smell like strawberries.

Killua even tries it on himself and settles on a nice apple-ly scent out of a cheap bottle that looks as though it's been recycled from farmyard scraps. It doesn't in any way reflect on the way he associates Gon with simplicity and earnestness, with the sun and the blemish of white it shines on the skins of fruit, oh no. He misses him but quietly, and this way Alluka won't see. He doesn't wear the scent proudly but he wears it nevertheless. And hopes, in the distant, proud part of him that Gon has found something of his own to remember him by, even if it's just a memory.

* * *

Gon does not learn to take care of longer hair. He does not ask girls, or even other boys, what they mush into their scalp, or even about the different methods they use to tie it away from their face. So he lets it swing down to coil and stick against his back, allows it to hug his movements and blind his eyes when the wind blows. It's a little annoying; he's seen Kite pull off the look after all, loose and unfettered under his cap even if now, of course, Kite doesn't wear a hat at all. Now, he lets the wind blow through red instead of the silver that he was once born with, feeling grateful that in this new, second life, he knows where he comes from.

Gon has forgotten that he has never worn a hat, but even so, something within him protests loudly at the thought of trying to shove his scalp under one _now_. It will feel rude, like he is copying the kind of man Kite had been. And to be honest, he isn't sure if he deserves to emulate the new kind of person Kite will become now.

But even so...

Gon has to run a lot more, has to learn to how to move without snagging his hair on branches, how to lean back on haunches that still can't support nen, and do it quickly and quietly without trapping his hair beneath his boots. It takes a while but he learns, despite the split ends and dust-smudged streaks within the black.

During the night he collapses and lets his hair serve as mattress and pillow, feels it spread like water beneath him. It becomes painted over with the imprint of his body, rolled in stones and dirt, and snagged by beetles and other things that Gon likes to laugh at in the daytime. He allows them to perch on the end of his fingers the next morning as he carefully and methodically brushes them out from the lengthy trap that springs from his scalp. But that's the limit to his upkeep. He has to get strong again, strong enough to look at himself and decide he's okay with who he's going to become.

* * *

Alluka learns to wash her own hair and Killua's fingers are left bereft, itching for something to take care of. He can fight and yes, there's an intimacy to that that he'll always crave and never be thoroughly rid of, but the intimacy that breathes out against your knuckle as somebody trusts you with their hair...well, he's never experienced it before. And it's not that Alluka is being selfish, she's just learning about herself and who she wants to be in a way that was denied her all these years. She locks herself away from him, changes in the bathroom, too shy and stubborn to let him see the way she's changing, how both her chest and voice are starting to get courser and slightly stronger. It's not even all the fault of biology. Alluka is simply learning to set boundaries that aren't dictated to her or anyone else out of fear.

And so Killua steps back, tries to understand. And in a way he does. This is what both he and Gon needed, even when they didn't know it. He let himself get wrapped up so much in the other boy he forget to branch out, to allow himself to root down in something he could be proud of, something only he could achieve for himself. Keeping Alluka safe seems almost like a benediction at times.

* * *

And then one day, like rocks and planets do, they crash into each other.

* * *

Killua stares at Gon, at his face first and foremost because there's where his soul shines, but eventually his eyes sweep down and across, raking over uncurbed, spoiled hair. Then he looks up with a sigh, before flicking the other boy in the forehead. Hard.

'Idiot,' he says firmly, ignoring both Gon's yell of pain and the quality of his voice which has become suspiciously thick. 'Why did you never cut it? Just look at it! You could probably see your own footprints in it if you stretched it out!'

Even Alluka isn't that careless.

'But Killuuua...' Gon whines, rubbing his forehead and Killua finds himself planting his face into his hand, his fingers covering his eyes as he lets out a vague sniff, one that's meant to convey distain but really, serves only to cover the smile he can feel twitching at his lips.

'Honestly,' he says, 'you don't change, do you? Still expecting me to clear up after your messes...'

'That's because you do it so well.'

Gon shifts, staring down at his fingers while Killua waits, marvelling at this strange strain of patience that has developed within him.

'You do it too well,' Gon suddenly explains, shoving his fingers together so forcefully that there's a nervous creak of bone, one that makes Killua twitch. 'I get that we both know it...now...but...' he sighs, dropping his hands to his side. 'Why is this so difficult to say? I usually say things and they're so easy to say because they're true and sometimes people need to hear them, but now I can't do it.'

He huffs and Killua laughs, laughs at the childish frustration on Gon's face and the way he shifts his weight to one side as though he wants to stomp his foot down into the dust the way he's seen his mother do in one of her fits.

Gon stares at him, outraged. But before he really can have a fit, Killua lifts up a piece of his hair, inspecting the way it splits and divides, but still shines with a weary, robust gleam under the sunlight. Gon freezes. Killua isn't surprised. Usually it's Gon who breaks them out of their usual momentum, Gon who reaches out and touches, invades personal space and...well, usually it's Gon who starts everything.

But if there's one thing Killua has learned, it's that he has to be willing to start things too, to drag Gon into places he might not want to go to. He's learnt this simply by being Alluka's personal hairdresser of all things, asking girls in the market and lobby-rooms what sort of conditioner they use and cringing at the way they all seem to soften and sweeten when he explains it's for his sister.

'Come on,' he says, giving the hair an experimental tug, much harder than he has ever done with Alluka's. 'I have this conditioner you can use.'

* * *

Gon crouches in the tub and smells of apples. It feels strangely intimate here, with Killua leaning over him and combing out suds from the hair that hangs heavy over his back like a shield. It's just so weird. Killua has always embarrassed easily, turned shades of red and pink that belonged on flowers whenever Gon has nettled him, but here Killua's actions are heavy, sloppy, ringing with love in the way he carefully nestles his fingers inside a knot and picks it apart. And then a comb dives in, drawing it out so that it becomes long and thick, as though he's pulling a spoon through cake-mix.

Gon's nose twitches. There's a recipe here and he's not following it; Killua's hands speak of practise, with the way they dip down to tuck away the hair that falls over his ears and then carefully travel over his back, gingerly touching, as though the action could blow them both away. But careful, Gon is aware, is not the same as gentle. Some of these knots hurt and Killua tuts and calls him a baby whenever he cries out in pain.

It's so weird. He doesn't mind the sting of the woodland trying to capture his hair, but one methodical touch from Killua and he's almost shaking.

'Killua...'

'What? Not worried that you're going to smell like a girl, are you?'

But there is no heat in his voice, just that same, heavy, heartfelt care that's echoed in his hands as they brush and stroke.

Gon falls silent again. It's so different from when Mito-san has done this for him, back when he was small enough to believe he just needed her and Great-Grandma and the animals in his life. But now of course, it seems to be taking so much longer as well.

Killua, for his part, is admiring the gleam he sees, and the way the bathroom light floods Gon's hair with stretched-out stars that break and divide into jagged edges. It's an illusion that happens whenever he angles the strands away from each other and it looks so different from Alluka's, despite the similar colour, because Alluka keeps her hair highly stylised and cut in deliberate chunks like she's creating stepping stones for Killua's hands to glide to. While Gon, in contrast, wears his wild and thick, heavy like a punishment. It's like he doesn't want anyone to touch it, and even though the light breaks over and trims the black of it into the same rinse of white patterns that Killua's seen play out over Alluka's, it still feels completely alien.

For one thing, Killua has never thought that the light dipping into Alluka's hair has had the same appeal as starlight. But here, beneath his hands, Gon's plays out like a universe's.

'You're good at this,' Gon says, his voice slightly muffled by his knees.

Killua smiles and then finds the courage to admit: 'I've always been good at a lot of things. And you told me, remember? All those, 'Ah Killua, you're so amazing!'

Gon laughs. 'And you always told me to shut up. Or got embarrassed.' And then, lower, he says, 'you're really good at this, Killua. Thank you.'

'Yeah, you should be thanking me. I don't do this for everyone, you know.'

Gon smiles again, a soft secret thing. 'Yeah. I know.'

Killua laughs at his tone, and, with no hint of a warning, ducks his head under the water.

* * *

Hours and hours later, Gon wakes up. There are no beetles in his hair, and no stones or dirt rolled out into the line of his scalp. He glances down at the inky shine of it, and sees it gleam like oil, the way it first did at the hospital. But this time, his wrist lies away from its dark grasp, separated only by the subtle tug of Killua's fingers.

Gon stares down at them, at the way their skin criss-crosses into a bunched-up knot against the line of his hair. This is not the way he would chose to hold a girl's hand on a date, but the other boy's calluses weave into his palm and press into his knuckles like a kiss, hard and unrelenting, in a way Killua has frequently protested Gon to be. And it feels perfect.

Gon thinks about this and wonders how Killua became so much braver than him. And then, abruptly, decides that it doesn't matter.

'Killua,' he breathes, 'wakes up.'

And then he leans back, just so he can clearly see if, this time, Killua will blush.

* * *

Notes: This is actually inspired by a request someone left on a kink meme somewhere, wanting to see Gon with long hair and Killua washing it or taking care of it somehow. This isn't exactly that, so I felt unsure about posting it where I found it. And, err, it takes a while to get to the place they wanted to see anyway. But I guess I wanted to explore how they would both arrive at a place where Killua could be grooming Gon's hair – it usually takes a while to gain that level of trust with someone, and you can't just bundle your hair into the fists of someone angry at you, even if you love them a lot. So this took longer than I thought it would.


End file.
